#cradle act

I got to see a Russian Cradle act in person at a circus this evening!!!!!

However, two recent paid leave proposals — the New Parents Act from Senators Marco Rubio and Mitt Romney[2] and the CRADLE Act from Senators Joni Ernst and Mike Lee — fall short of this standard in important ways:

Unlike the paid leave programs of several pioneering states (and the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which provides for unpaid leave), both bills would provide paid leave only to parents caring for newborn or newly adopted children, leaving out workers who need to care for their own serious health issues or those of a family member.

Instead of pooling risks and resources across the entire workforce, as the rest of Social Security and the state paid family and medical leave programs do, these bills would ask individual parents to bear the cost of their parental leave benefits by cutting the Social Security retirement benefits they would receive decades later. This would weaken Social Security’s near-universal social insurance protection by treating the program’s guaranteed benefits like a private account from which individuals could draw. Essentially, both bills ask parents to choose between their current caregiving needs and their future retirement security.

via CBPP.

Related Reading:

Stop asking parents to sacrifice Social Security benefits for paid family leave.

“There should be no trade-off between paid family leave and Social Security benefits,” says former Senator Tom Harkin, chairman of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare’s advisory board.

What A Stupid Law!

But Conservative Voters are just Stupid enough to not see that it’s NOT “Paid Leave”

As if Americans’ Social Security retirement benefits were not already sufficiently modest, conservatives have come up with a new ploy to erode them under the guise of something positive: paid family leave. The Cradle Act, introduced last week by Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), would encourage new parents to accept federally-paid family leave in exchange for much-needed Social Security retirement benefits later.

“You can take one, two or three months of parental leave and as a consequence of that, choose to delay your retirement date by two, four or six months," Senator Lee explained. Note the Senator’s use of the word “consequence.” Paid family leave should not entail “consequences” for new parents, least of all the sacrifice of their future retirement benefits.

The federal government should fund family leave. But why help new parents out in the early years only to penalize them as seniors?

Lee said the proposal would not be "a tax on every individual or every employer," but a choice for individual workers. The current proposal would allow parents to choose how much time they take off, up to the 12 weeks currently guaranteed unpaid.

"Anyone can choose whether or not to participate in the program," Lee said. "It is a trade-off, but a trade-off many will be willing to take."

But Democrats have other ideas: Many would like to see a new program to guarantee paid leave, without reducing benefits in other areas.

via Des Moines Register.

Related Reading:

The GOP's plan for Paid Family Leave which would make people use their Social Security and delay their retirement.

As if Americans’ Social Security retirement benefits were not already sufficiently modest, conservatives have come up with a new ploy to erode them under the guise of something positive: paid family leave. The Cradle Act, introduced last week by Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), would encourage new parents to accept federally-paid family leave in exchange for much-needed Social Security retirement benefits later.

“You can take one, two or three months of parental leave and as a consequence of that, choose to delay your retirement date by two, four or six months," Senator Lee explained. Note the Senator’s use of the word “consequence.” Paid family leave should not entail “consequences” for new parents, least of all the sacrifice of their future retirement benefits.

via twitter.

Related Reading:

Stop asking parents to sacrifice Social Security benefits for paid family leave.

The federal government should fund family leave. But why help new parents out in the early years only to penalize them as seniors? 

“There should be no trade-off between paid family leave and Social Security benefits,” says former Senator Tom Harkin, chairman of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare’s advisory board.